


Crash

by charcoalscenes



Series: Backdated Publications [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Burn Injuries, Introspection, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Season 2, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29638797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charcoalscenes/pseuds/charcoalscenes
Summary: Hating is about focus.(Posted to AO3 on February 2021 with a Backdated Publication date from when it posted to Tumblr.)
Relationships: IV | Thomas Arclight & Kamishiro Ryouga
Series: Backdated Publications [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170983
Kudos: 1





	Crash

**Author's Note:**

> Actual publication into AO3 is on February 2021. This is an old piece I shared on Tumblr and wanted to post using this site's Backdate feature. More older fics will likely be added onto the Backdated Publications series, so for anyone interested in this piece or in checking out the others, enjoy!

He didn’t even consider IV. There were jokes in the online Duel Cafes about The Stop Sign, or the “TSS - Too Showy and Silly.” As though a simple announcement or a red light weren’t enough of a notice for something that would already be dramatic in itself, The Stop Sign was a holographic “X” the size of an average car, and it wouldn’t be just one that blinked on and off, over and over again until both duelists left the stadium - it had to be two signs, escalating to several, until all that the Duelist they surrounded saw were the blocky yellows and the blinding reds, housing the sick green _STOP_ ’s in the centers. All Shark could see were the Signs, all he could hear were the overly dramatic sirens, and all he could think about was how he’d be able to face Rio ever again after this.

He wouldn’t, for a while.

IV was just a shadow in his memory for a long, long time - that “long time” being a mere few months, technically. IV was his opponent, and a strong one, obviously. The Asia Champion, the king of his fans, the man whose smile was obviously fake in Ryouga’s eyes, but what did that matter? “You have to win” didn’t have to include perceiving the opponent as human, one with a flaky sense of humor, and a laugh that was often a bit too high during interviews of them together.

The days before their scheduled match were nothing but a grating movie Ryouga couldn’t wait to end. “You have to win” didn’t have to consider the time before the battle, other than the time spent on strategizing for it. The short instruction didn’t include having to be attentive while an MC tried to engage Shark with the enemy - so that he could notice how IV would never look at him, how hunched his shoulders were when the media forced the two together, how IV almost couldn’t stand to be near Ryouga for too long, how IV’s mouth would twitch a little too high up and how his eyebrows would do the same- and even if Shark _had_ paid attention, had caught all the little details that shouldn’t have mattered, how would he’d have guessed **guilt** as a possible explanation for any of IV’s reactions to him.

IV walking out of the waiting room didn’t strike Shark as strange. Duelists, good Duelists, take care of their cards the way happy children wash a good mother’s dish, thoroughly and meticulously and almost lovingly enough so that not a pinch of dirt could hurt mommy’s tummy. But Shark didn’t have it in himself to think of his opponent with that sort of regard. IV wasn’t anyone to him, or anything even if incompetent or sneaky - just a means to an end.

Shark saw his opponent’s deck fall helplessly from its haphazard perch and scatter before him. “You have to win” didn’t care how he did it, didn’t care if the enemy was still down or made a mistake, and didn’t care if he felt wrong and shaken as he took a step forward to peek at the cardboard mess on the floor. The announcers and supervisors also didn’t care- that the only thing he saw from that peek was one card - before disqualifying him.

IV smiled, recorded and broadcasted on the large screen over the stadium, but for so long, all Shark could see from that battlefield in his memory were half a dozen gaudy signs telling him how he didn’t even have a chance to lose.

.

IV’s smile came to his memory, he thinks, when he first caught Mirror Force before the damn piece of paper flew onto his goggles to blind-sight him from the road. (The truth was, he’d admit to himself much, much later, that he probably just imagined the smile in the memory, because it was the first expression he saw on IV’s face, just before WDC, when he started paying just a little more attention.) Suddenly, after months of regret and shame and guilt and everything on the sickly-colored end of the feel-bad spectrum, Shark had something besides himself to blame. But it didn’t feel good; nothing felt at all better. IV’s smile was a sneer, smearing the goofy look Yuma had just a moment before from Shark’s mind as soon as IV mentioned her.

The ludicrous “Violence isn’t allowed~” wasn’t what stopped him, of course. He didn’t know what he’d _do_ to IV once he got to him. A beating wasn’t enough; no amount of damage his fists might do could repent for the bandages that covered his sister now. Burning him, even, just as she was burned, would do nothing, wouldn’t even make Ryouga feel better or satisfied, never mind make IV answer for what he did to Rio. At least, in a duel, he could crush IV. In a duel, IV could be humiliated, beaten slowly so that he could do nothing but squirm dumbly while his fangirls cry.

.

Ryouga had months before to practice and not master so much as let himself be mastered by the art of hating. Hate wasn’t just about anger, or sadness - it was what was done to those emotions, how they were molded so that the thoughts and feelings already inside a person could grow and sprout through their words and actions. Everything that reminded him of Rio reminded him that it was his fault, everything that reminded him of dueling reminded him that he wasn’t as good anymore, and every move he made to brush his hair and wash himself and put on a few rings and a necklace in the mornings reminded him that all he had left then was vanity- and how pathetic he had become for that to be. And animals shouldn’t associate with their wounded-and-dying, so Shark left school, because even the bullies who he’d recruited as posse were able to tell how far he’d fallen, for him to fail even at a petty thing like bullying. 

Hating is about focus, about concentrating (even in the face of things that attempt to contradict it) on the reasons for that hate, on the reasons for those reasons, on the consistency of the feeling, and on how one will go about expressing it (regardless if the contradiction is something as loud and obnoxious as Yuma Tsukumo). Hating something isn’t lazy; it’s maintained and nurtured, like a muscle, and Shark exercised and flexed his hate every time he said yes to another of Rikuo’s proposed heists. 

Though, the key to hating something, Shark knows, and knows very well, is the justification, and building on it. He failed Rio- and then bullied others, then broke what everyone at school knew was the kid’s memento, then bullied some more before finally joining a trio of glorified snatchers. “Don’t you see how fucked up I am already,” he wanted to rattle him, but Yuma had wide eyes, strong eyes, the kind that didn’t tremble during late nights in the wrong part of town, and Shark knew he wouldn’t listen. “I lost at the only thing I was good for,” he wanted to say, “I treated your friend like shit, treated you like shit, and I will break you like I broke that stupid Key just to prove to you how bad I am.”

He settled for, “Don’t get involved with me,” and tried droning it out, not really so that Yuma would take his advice, because he wouldn’t, but so that Yuma would finally get tired of hearing it and stop coming. It was a dehumanization, after a while; he was only his mistakes, only his errors, only the things he did wrong, and he stopped being Ryouga Kamishiro and became someone who couldn’t be helped- didn’t deserve it.

IV was his sneer of a smile. IV was his teeth, perfect and pointed and ugly in a grin that was too wide and too open, and only later would Shark see to be too forced to really be pleased. IV was the wrappings Rio wore, why Ryouga’s embarrassed that he can no longer laugh or feign indifference at mummies because she looks too much like them now. IV was the fire that hurt her, intentional. IV was Mirror Force - annoying, and hidden until the rage Shark thought he had finally released was suddenly upon him again.

IV was the corny figure who entered the scene, handsome and mysterious, and stayed at enough distance just to spite Shark before leaving again, handsome and mysterious. IV became the painful screech of the wheels of the Duel Coaster he rode as they sailed its tracks - down a hollow tunnel that echoed the noise and grated the both of them as Ryouga followed. It was a lot more like exercise now than it had been when the hate was something from inside him, now that Ryouga had to run and run and run to keep up with IV, like a persistent hamster in a wheel.

The setting was fitting, he supposed - the lava and angry explosions from the scorched earth and hard rocks finally letting loose all the tension, all the obvious rage, between them, and IV, once again, wasn’t anyone to him. IV stood tall, and smiled, a perfect part of the terrible scenery, a means to an end. He told himself that his hate gave him strength and that this was the right thing to do as he opened his heart to Shark Drake.

.

Something was wrong with him. It was the Number, he knew on some level, but it was too late to back out now, even as he was hit by a breeze of uneasiness at just how numb he suddenly felt- towards his victory, towards Yuma, and towards IV being human.

IV was trying not to cry, trying to follow Shark’s earlier roar and not play the victim, before disappearing - eyes tired, and shoulders sulking resignedly in a heavy way that Shark knew from experience couldn’t be just from their duel. It didn’t matter. One obstacle out of the way, and it turned out that there was another for Shark to dispose of immediately after.

Yuma’s voice still got to him past the hisses Drake shrouded his head with. He left, but something about how Yuma talked of IV, the brothers, made Ryouga silently more aware, little by little, of how _normal_ IV’s smile was just then, even though it was more than sad. IV was heartbroken, even though monsters didn’t have hearts, and his lips looked soft and trembled with his last words, regular rather than disgusting or beastly as IV’s smiles had been when he’d seethe insults and threats at him. IV’s eyes were sad. Shark had seen that look in the mirror before. It takes _time_ to be able to hate someone, really hate someone - yourself - and pull off looking that sad just at the sound of your own voice admitting that you lost.

He was never the only one who hated IV.

.

Blind to Tron until IV’s defeat and knowing he was making himself into nothing but a pawn as well, Shark let it happen. A part of him said that he could handle Tron - that even after fighting so long against himself, then IV, he could still take Tron. Something in him also whispered (perhaps Tron, or the Number, or maybe a part of him that remembered Yuma saying all Duelists are friends) that he could avenge IV too.

But he ran into the smoky alley knowing that he wouldn’t fall so easily into such an obvious trap unless he was tired. Because despite the exercise, the nurturing, the justifications, and the mindset telling him that he could act on his madness for as long as it would take for him to feel as though he’d made up for his losses to Rio, hate makes people tired.

Hating something enough can morph people into what they hate, and why stop now when for weeks he had followed IV, as destructive and frenzied as a rabid dog. Shark dived for Tron, knowing how angry IV always was even when Shark hadn’t cared what for, knowing how all the skills that the Asia Champion had were thrown away in a moment of uncontrolled rage and a loss of self during their duel, and knowing how drained IV became as he was sent back to the one who also saw him as nothing more than a means–

Shark’s knees buckled, and he screamed. But, unlike IV, he wouldn’t be allowed to rest, yet.


End file.
